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Thread: Rendez-Vous with French Cinema

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    Rendez-Vous with French Cinema

    The 2019 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, Feb. 28 - Mar. 10, 2019

    FILMLEAF FESTIVAL COVERAGE THREAD


    VINCENT LACOSTE in The Freshmen / Première année

    FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS
    were announced Thurs. 24 Jan. 2019. Following are the FSLC descriptions. (If you know French, pay close attention to the original French titles.) This information and more will be found on the FSLC site HERE. The Rendez-Vous with French Cinema is one of the most popular film series in New York. It's an annual collaboration between UniFrance and the Film Society of Lincoln Center that's now in its 24th year. I've covered it since 2006.

    All films screen digitally in the Walter Reade Theater (165 W. 65th St.) unless otherwise noted.

    Opening Night
    The Trouble with You / En liberté!
    Pierre Salvadori, France, 2018, 108m
    French with English subtitles
    New York Premiere

    A heartfelt performance from Adèle Haenel anchors the latest comic whirlwind from Pierre Salvadori, whose In the Courtyard played at Rendez-Vous in 2015. Haenel’s Yvonne is coping with the recent loss of her husband (Vincent Elbaz), a fellow police investigator and something of a folk hero in their small Riviera town. After she discovers that her partner’s golden reputation is totally fabricated, with one faux heist resulting in the jailing of an innocent jeweler (Pio Marmaï), Yvonne strives to salvage this man’s fate—and in the process tumbles through slapsticky fisticuffs and romantic intrigue. With supporting turns from Audrey Tautou and Damien Bonnard (Staying Vertical), this brilliantly written Cannes Directors’ Fortnight standout serves up a hilarious yet tender story of integrity and redemption. Nominated for nine César Awards including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, and all four acting categories.

    Preceded by:
    Les Indes galantes
    Clément Cogitore, France, 2018, 5m

    At the Paris Opera, members of three Krump street-dancing collectives collaborate to perform an excerpt from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s ballet in this electrifying short documentary from director Clément Cogitore and The Trouble with You renowned producer Philippe Martin.
    Thursday, February 28, 6:30pm (Introduction by Pierre Salvadori and Pio Marmaï)
    Thursday, February 28, 9:00pm (Introduction by Pierre Salvadori and Pio Marmaï)

    The 400 Blows / Les Quatre cents coups
    François Truffaut, France, 1959, 99m
    French with English subtitles

    When film critic François Truffaut was challenged to put into practice what he’d been preaching, he chose to tell the story of a 13-year-old wild child in Paris whose adventures were based on his own adolescence. Rejected or rebuffed by school, family, and community, young Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) sets out on his own, propelled toward one of the most famous of all movie endings: the legendary snapshot of a childhood on the brink. The 400 Blows marked the birth of Jean-Pierre Léaud as crown prince of the French New Wave, and of Truffaut as its runaway auteur.
    Saturday, March 2, 1:00pm (Introduction by Russell Banks and Serge Toubiana)

    Amanda
    Mikhaël Hers, France, 2018, 107m
    French with English subtitles
    U.S. Premiere

    Vincent Lacoste leads Mikhaël Hers’s poignant new feature about trauma and its aftershocks. At first, David (Lacoste) is just beginning to figure out life in his early twenties, helping his sister (Ophélia Kolb) raise her 7-year-old daughter, Amanda (Isaure Multrier), and gently initiating a romance with a pianist (Stacy Martin, Nymphomaniac). This era of placidity is brutally ruptured, and a grief-stricken David must assume new responsibility for Amanda as a potential guardian. With an understated directorial touch, Hers creates a touching story of resilience deepened by delicately nuanced performances. Nominated for César Awards for Best Actor and Original Score.
    Saturday, March 2, 6:00pm (Q&A with Mikhaël Hers)
    Saturday, March 9, 1:30pm

    The Art of Seduction / Mademoiselle de Joncquières
    Emmanuel Mouret, France, 2018, 110m
    French with English subtitles

    In Emmanuel Mouret’s witty twist on Denis Diderot’s 18th-century novel Jacques the Fatalist, also the inspiration for Bresson’s Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, passion dissipates into jealousy and hardens into vengeance. The widowed Madame de La Pommeraye (Cécile de France) prides herself on maintaining a rational distance from matters of the heart, but against her better judgment, she gives in to a persistent and charming Marquis (Edouard Baer). When the affair loses its glow and the Marquis slips back into his libertine lifestyle, the Madame concocts an elaborate revenge plot, and finds two susceptible pawns in a mother and daughter duo (Alice Isaaz and Natalia Dontcheva) whose own social standing was sabotaged by a dishonest husband. Of a deliciously calculating piece with Dangerous Liaisons, The Art of Seduction weds a critique of privilege to an enthralling tale of deception. Nominated for six César Awards including Best Actress, Actor, Screenplay, Cinematography, and Costumes.
    Friday, March 1, 9:00pm (Q&A with Emmanuel Mouret)
    Monday, March 4, 4:00pm

    Coincoin and the Extra-Humans/Coincoin et les Z'inhumains
    Bruno Dumont, France, 2018, 200m
    French with English subtitles
    U.S. Premiere

    Bruno Dumont’s sequel to 2014’s Li’l Quinquin, which signified his bold break from social realism into madcap experimentalism, revisits its ragtag characters in a new absurdist epic that reckons with xenophobia in northern France. As gobs of ectoplasmic gunk fall from the sky without warning, the now-teenaged Coincoin must again evade the spluttering police captain Van der Weyden and his deputy Carpentier as they zoom through sparse pastoral vistas, on the hunt for clues. Although they’re utterly ill-equipped to connect these splats to the sudden materialization of identical twins around town, their moments of prophetic lucidity are as surprising as they are revealing. Across this expansive canvas, Coincoin and the Extra-Humans channels Jacques Tati, Antonin Artaud, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers into a deadpan fever dream, wholly singular and undeniably Dumont.
    Sunday, March 3, 1:00pm (Q&A with Bruno Dumont)


    PHILIPPE JORE AND BERNARD PRUVOST in Coincoin and the Extra-Humans


    The Freshmen / Première année
    Thomas Lilti, France, 2018, 92m
    French with English subtitles
    New York Premiere

    Thomas Lilti, whose hospital drama Hippocrates played Rendez-Vous in 2015, draws upon his experience as a doctor once again for this affectionate tale of two medical-school freshmen. Antoine (Vincent Lacoste) is beginning his third attempt at the first year, which culminates in a cutthroat entrance exam before one can even opt into the medical concentration. When classes commence, he meets Benjamin (William Lebghil), an endearingly aloof new student whose upbringing in a medical family helps him intuitively grasp course concepts. As the two become fast friends and study partners, they embark on a year that pits academic automatism against the emotional highs and lows of discovering one’s calling in life. Nominated for a Best New Actor César Award.
    Thursday, March 7, 9:00pm
    Saturday, March 9, 3:45pm

    Girls of the Sun / Les Filles du soleil
    Eva Husson, France/Belgium/Georgia/Switzerland, 2018, 111m
    English, French, Kurdish, and Arabic with English subtitles
    An unshakable Golshifteh Farahani, as Bahar, the commander of an all-female unit of resistance fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan, holds the center of Girls of the Sun. Bahar’s squadron is comprised entirely of former captives who survived a massacre in Corduene, and their rage to fight stems from the grief of witnessing the slaughter of their loved ones. A French war journalist (Emmanuelle Bercot) assigned to cover ISIS’s invasion of Mount Sinjar is struck by Bahar’s adamant rejections of her fellow male soldiers’ more cautious strategies; instead, she suggests working together to pull off a riskier, but total, infiltration of the enemy headquarters. Drawing from true events, Eva Husson takes an uncompromising, female-driven look at the collective and individual strength it takes to resist oppression. [AlloCiné press rating: 1.9]
    Friday, March 1, 1:30pm
    Sunday, March 3, 8:30pm (Q&A with Eva Husson)

    In Safe Hands / Pupille
    Jeanne Henry, France/Belgium, 2018, 109m
    French with English subtitles

    Jeanne Herry crafts a story stemming from a delicate two-and-a-half-month state of limbo for a newborn child, Théo, who becomes a ward of the state after his mother gives him up for adoption at birth. In Safe Hands choreographs parallel strands of action: the search for potential parents undertaken by the social workers managing Théo’s case (Sandrine Kiberlain and Clotilde Mollet), the care and vigilance required for Théo’s foster father (Gilles Lellouche) to properly nurture him in the interim, and the nine-year journey of adoption applications and fractured marriage embarked upon by a possible mother (Élodie Bouchez). Within this institutional balancing act, Herry’s characters swing between intense determination, uncertainty, and, ultimately, joy: all par for the course while seeking the proper equilibrium for a person’s life to begin. Nominated for seven César Awards including Best Film, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay.
    Monday, March 4, 6:15pm (Q&A with Élodie Bouchez)

    Invisibles / Les Invisibles
    Louis-Julien Petit, France, 2018, 102m
    French with English subtitles
    North American Premiere

    With pathos and institutional nuance, Louis-Julien Petit’s third social-realist drama transforms its source nonfiction text by Claire Lajeunie into a spirited ensemble piece about a daytime shelter for homeless women. Following the municipal government’s decision to shut down the institution, largely due to the optics of meager reintegration statistics, the shelter’s conscientious all-female staff launches into action to help secure employment for as many women as possible. However, their increasingly assertive coaching sessions compel the social workers to confront the ways in which they, too, might be focusing more on printed résumés than people. In this buoyant character-driven study indebted to Stephen Frears and Ken Loach, Petit lays bare the broken and oppressive systems plaguing Paris’s approach to homelessness, while also emphasizing the social element of social work.
    Thursday, March 7, 6:15pm
    Friday, March 8, 1:30pm

    Keep an Eye Out! / Au poste!
    Quentin Dupieux, France, 2018, 73m
    French with English subtitles
    New York Premiere

    Tires and TVs have come to life—and thirsted for blood—in two of Quentin Dupieux’s earlier features, Rubber and Reality (Rendez-Vous 2015) respectively. With Keep an Eye Out!, the ever-unpredictable filmmaker and Brainfeeder-signed electronic musician returns with a seemingly intimately scaled bottle narrative: a minutiae-obsessed police inspector (a perfectly cast Benoît Poelvoorde, Man Bites Dog) bumbles and doubles back through the most agonizing interrogation of all time, much to the chagrin of the interviewee (Grégoire Ludig), who stumbled upon a dead body in front of his apartment building. When Poelvoorde’s inspector momentarily steps outside and leaves an anxious one-eyed officer (Marc Fraize) in charge, the story morphs into something more off-kilter. As one might expect from Dupieux, this is but one of several surprises in a film that is constantly in mesmerizing and darkly comedic flux.
    Tuesday, March 5, 8:15pm
    Sunday, March 10, 7:45pm


    AARSHI BANERJEE in Maya

    Maya
    Mia Hansen-Løve, France/Germany, 2018, 107m
    English and French with English subtitles
    New York Premiere

    Across a remarkably contemplative range of work—including Goodbye First Love, Eden, and Things to Come—Mia Hansen-Løve has conjured visceral points of entry into philosophical themes; in Maya, she thoughtfully probes the private intricacies of rehabilitation. Four months after he was taken hostage in Syria, war journalist Gabriel (Roman Kolinka, Things to Come) returns home to France. Still coping internally with his trauma, Gabriel unmoors himself from now-alienating familiar faces and decamps to India, where he spent his childhood. While staying at his family’s old house in Goa, he strikes up a rapport with his godfather’s daughter, Maya (Aarshi Banerjee), who, feeling out of place, recently dropped out of school in London. As the two bond over their mutual restlessness, Hansen-Løve gently questions whether Gabriel’s self-imposed, ever-moving isolation truly constitutes healing. With Alex Descas and Johanna ter Steege.
    Wednesday, March 6, 6:00pm (Q&A with Mia Hansen-Løve)
    Thursday, March 7, 2:00pm

    Meteorites / Les Méteorites
    Romain Laguna, France, 2018, 85m
    French with English subtitles
    North American Premiere

    After 16-year-old Nina (Zéa Duprez) sees a meteorite fall from the sky, she can’t find any physical evidence to prove what she witnessed. Instead, the mysterious event catalyzes an exploratory and quietly momentous summer, which sets the scene for Romain Laguna’s atmospheric first feature. Adrift after dropping out of school, Nina pursues love and lust with Morad (Billal Agab), her best friend’s older brother, who hails from an Algerian family in their otherwise culturally homogeneous village in the south of France. As their time passes, Nina senses a slight rift between the personal and shared stakes of their relationship, but the journey emerges as one of crucial self-discovery. Laguna crafts an evocative and tactile portrait of the hunger for experience that shapes our teenage years, and Duprez’s remarkably assured performance introduces a poised new talent.
    Thursday, March 7, 4:15pm
    Sunday, March 10, 3:30pm

    Paul Sanchez Is Back! / Paul Sanchez est revenu!
    Patricia Mazuy, France, 2018, 110m
    French with English subtitles
    North American Premiere

    The police are reticent to believe that the notorious murderer Paul Sanchez is, indeed, back 10 years after he vanished without a trace. Yet adventure-hungry junior-officer Marion (César-winner Zita Hanrot, Fatima) can’t help obsessing over bread crumbs of hearsay, especially once a local reporter (Idir Chender, Occidental) begins receiving mysterious e-mails supposedly sent by Sanchez himself. Also starring Elle’s Laurent Lafitte, this long-awaited fifth feature from Patricia Mazuy (The King’s Daughters) spins a gripping caper with ample commentary on sensationalistic media narratives—but far from prosaic, it’s also an adrenaline rush of the imagination propelled by a percussive original score from John Cale.
    Friday, March 8, 8:30pm
    Saturday, March 9, 5:45pm

    Raising Colors / Volontaire
    Hélène Fillières, France, 2018, 100m
    French with English subtitles
    U.S. Premiere

    Much to the chagrin of her pacifist family, Sorbonne-educated Laure Baer (Diane Rouxel) ends up taking the first job offer she receives: an administrative position in the French Navy. As training begins, Laure assumes her post supporting the austere and withdrawn Commander Rivière (Lambert Wilson), she is surprised by how resonant she finds the codes of honor and discipline that structure military life. When her curiosity is piqued by the possibility of trying out for special ops, she commits herself to the challenge despite sexist dismissals of her capabilities, and strives to prove herself to the Chief Training Officer (Alex Descas). The second feature-film outing by actress Hélène Fillières (Tied) as a director captures a palpable electricity within the formality of ceremony, inextricable from a search for self.
    Friday, March 1, 4:00pm
    Sunday, March 3, 5:45pm (Q&A with Hélène Fillières)

    School’s Out / L’Heure de la sortie
    Sébastien Marnier, France, 2018, 103m
    French with English subtitles
    North American Premiere

    In his Venice-selected sophomore thriller, Sébastien Marnier (Faultless, Rendez-Vous 2017) sets his sights on a chilly class of gifted and talented students in the French countryside. After their teacher commits suicide during an exam, Pierre Hoffman (Laurent Lafitte, Elle) is called in as a long-term substitute. Expecting a class collectively reeling from this traumatic shock, Pierre is surprised to encounter a group of seemingly affectless mid-teens, mostly concerned with accelerating at an appropriate pace through their advanced-level courses. His sense that something is askew only grows more acute when he notices a strange turn-the-other-cheek approach to physical violence—both from the students and his fellow faculty members. As Pierre spirals further into a wormhole that references both J.G. Ballard and Patti Smith, Marnier maintains a sense of creeping unease that expands into a chilling capitalist critique.
    Friday, March 8, 3:45pm
    Saturday, March 9, 8:30pm (Q&A with Sébastien Marnier)


    STACY MARTIN in Amanda

    Sink or Swim / Le grand bain
    Gilles Lellouche, Belgium/France, 2018, 122m
    French and Sinhalese with English subtitles

    With buoyant energy, Gilles Lellouche choreographs and directs a stellar ensemble in pursuit of grace and discarded dreams—that is, a group of varyingly coordinated middle-aged men who find an outlet in synchronized swimming. Bertrand (Mathieu Amalric, soulful yet understated) is the newbie to the group, having signed up on a whim to take his mind off of his unemployment and depression. As he gets to know his fellow swimmers, played by Guillaume Canet, Benoît Poelvoorde, Jean-Hugues Anglade, and Philippe Katerine, he uncovers shared frustrations and disappointments, but also hope in a hobby that’s less about skill than teamwork. After a year of awkward and charmingly comedic practice sessions, Bertrand’s proposal that his motley crew train for the world championships fuels their conviction to prove that time has not passed them by. Nominated for 10 César Awards including Best Film, Director, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, and Cinematography.
    Saturday, March 2, 8:45pm
    Monday, March 4, 9:00pm

    Film Comment Presents
    Sophia Antipolis
    Virgil Vernier, France, 2018, 98m
    French with English subtitles
    North American Premiere

    Virgil Vernier’s follow-up to his acclaimed debut feature, Mercuriales (ND/NF 2015), takes stock of the state of the French socioeconomic order as embodied by the eponymous, dystopian business park and an eclectic ensemble of cult members, militiamen, and more. Once again working in richly textured Super 16mm, Vernier moves episodically from one character to another, tracking their movements, thoughts, and desires in the aftermath of the discovery of a young girl’s body, apparently burned alive, in one of the park’s factories. A group portrait of disappointment, disillusionment, and disaffection in a veritable hothouse of late capitalism, Sophia Antipolis is a work as singularly political as it is sophisticatedly drawn.
    Tuesday, March 5, 4:00pm
    Sunday, March 10, 5:30pm

    The Summer House / Les Estivants
    Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, France/Italy, 2018, 122m
    French with English subtitles
    U.S Premiere

    The inherent slippage between reality and narrative becomes a power unto itself in Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s new feature. During an annual summer vacation to the family villa on the French Riviera, filmmaker Anna (Bruni Tedeschi) conceals a sudden split from her husband from her relatives and their spouses, all of whom are more volatile than usual while coping with the death of her brother. Palpably in her own head while interacting with her sister (Valeria Golino), her daughter (real-life daughter Oumy Bruni Garrel), and her screenwriting partner (real-life co-writer Noémie Lvovsky), Anna also prepares a film based on this recent loss, which is received coldly by her family. Meanwhile, the domestic staff (including Yolande Moreau and François Négret) negotiates for better pay and work conditions with a family they find increasingly self-absorbed. Like Bruni Tedeschi’s A Castle in Italy (2013), The Summer House invites autobiographical readings while also complicating the idea of art as personal exorcism.
    Tuesday, March 5, 1:30pm
    Friday, March 8, 6:00pm

    The Time of the Pirates / Seuls les pirates
    Gaël Lépingle, France, 2018, 89m
    French with English subtitles
    North American Premiere

    Winner of the Grand Prix in the French competition at FIDMarseille, The Time of the Pirates boasts a structure that is at first vignette-based and patchwork before it quickly settles on a focal thread: the story of Géro, the spunky owner of a community theater troupe in the Loire Valley. As the local government threatens to demolish his house and theater to make way for public housing, the anarchy-loving actor, undeterred after losing his voice from his battle with cancer, plots an idiosyncratic defense against the forces that threaten to drain the life from both of his homes. Gaël Lépingle (Julien) rounds out this earnest and vibrant mosaic of quotidian resistance with Géro’s aspiring-playwright nephew Léo and a cohort of like-minded friends and refugees.
    Tuesday, March 5, 6:15pm
    Wednesday, March 6, 2:00pm

    The Truk/L'Enkas
    Sarah Marx, France/Ukraine, 2018, 83m
    French with English subtitles
    North American Premiere

    After being released early from prison, Ulysse (Sandor Funtek, Blue Is the Warmest Color) must take over as the primary caregiver for his mother (devastatingly fleshed out by Sandrine Bonnaire), who is undergoing treatment for severe depression. Confronted by overwhelming debts and health-care costs, Ulysse reconnects with an old friend who plans to covertly sell ketamine from a food truck at an EDM festival. As Sarah Marx widens the range of parties involved in this drug ring, she emphasizes the broader contexts that give rise to their increasingly cutthroat desperation, throwing Ulysse’s precarious solution into jeopardy. The film’s handheld camerawork grounds each scene in a fragile immediacy evoking the Dardennes in this stinging debut feature about the bitter casualties of class disparity.
    Wednesday, March 6, 4:00pm
    Sunday, March 10, 1:30pm

    When Margaux Meets Margaux / La Belle et la belle
    Sophie Fillières, France, 2018, 97m
    French with English subtitles
    New York Premiere

    This irresistible fantastical tale from Sophie Fillières (If You Don’t, I Will, Rendez-Vous 2014) centers on a chance meeting between an impulsive but aimless twentysomething named Margaux (Fillières’s daughter Agathe Bonitzer, Right Here Right Now) and a disenchanted fortysomething who’s not only coincidentally named Margaux (Sandrine Kiberlain, Tip Top)… but also is Margaux. Accurately pulling from her past self’s proclivities, social circles, and future life events, the wiser Margaux revisits her memories and regrets to give herself retroactive advice and, possibly, a way to start over, including a stirring romance with a handsome suitor (Melvil Poupaud). From this surreal premise, Fillières crafts a lovingly philosophical ode to our personal paths and stumbles through love and life.
    Friday, March 1, 6:15pm (Q&A with Sophie Fillières)
    Wednesday, March 6, 8:45pm

    Whatever Happened to My Revolution / Tout ce qu’il me reste de la révolution
    Judith Davis, France, 2018, 88m
    French with English subtitles
    North American Premiere

    Angèle’s parents first fell in love on the front lines of Maoist protests; now they are separated, and Angèle, an idealistic urban planner, struggles with the compromises her family has made in exchange for comfortable lives. Actress Judith Davis’s playful and passionate feature directorial debut follows Angèle, played by Davis herself, into a contemporary Paris that missed the revolutionary memo, long after the movements sparked by May ’68 have faded into history. Fueled by a bleeding activist heart that sometimes backs her into a corner, Angèle strives to reconcile her radical values with relatives who are trending more and more bourgeois. And faced with the opportunity to reconnect with her estranged mother (Mireille Perrier, J’entends plus la guitare), who has retreated from the dreams that Angèle is now pursuing, she locates the strength of her convictions in her dedication to meaningful interpersonal connection. AlloCiné press rating: 3.6.
    Saturday, March 2, 3:30pm (Q&A with Judith Davis)
    Monday, March 4, 1:30pm


    BENOÎT POELVOORDE in Keep an Eye Out!
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 03-07-2019 at 06:14 AM.

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    Some advance comments on the 2019 New York Rendez-Vous.


    Daughters of the Sun/Filles du soleil

    Mademoiselle de Joncquères Emmanuel Mouret
    It was reviewed here briefly last fall in my Paris Movie Journal. It's a beautiful film, but the casting seems to have gone for charm and box office appeal over appropriateness. Neither Baer nor De France shows quite the necessary edge. Nonetheless it did well with French critics. The AlloCiné press rating was 3.9. The AlloCiné biography calls director Emmanuel Mouret "the heir of Rohmer, Guitry et Woody Allen." That combination seemed clearer in his 2007 Shall We Kiss? (R-V 2008).

    Vincent Lacoste
    He has become an important figure in French cinema seemingly in spite of himself. Plucked out of collège (junior high) the way Romain Duris was found in a lycée (high school), Lacoste debuted at 13 in the comically realistic 2009 adolescent drama French Kissers/Les beaux gosses (R-V 2010), and took to the medium. Ten years on, has appeared in around 25 films, and is more and more a known and popular actor in France. He has tended to play amiable slacker roles that seem to fit his own personality, but he has always sought new challenges. Last year's R-V showed him as the young would-be lover in Justine Triet's charming and frequently hilarious comedy, Victoria. In Amanda he's a young man dealing with tragedy, and in Freshman he tackles another medical-related coming of age story directed by medically-rained Thomas Lilti. He landed a leading role in Christophe Honoré's Cannes Competition film Sorry Angel, also part of the NYFF Main Slate, and Liti's medical school drama, which has got plenty of attention in France, completes a year that has made this offhand slacker guy with the cherubic face and mop of curly hair definitively one of the country's major stars.

    Daughters of the Sun/Les filles du soleil Eva Husson
    I was the laughing stock of Cannes last year. It was judged by many (not all, of course!) to be terrible in every respect. The AlloCiné press rating of 1.9 is off-the-charts bad. "Everything rings false in this film," said Le Monde. An unfortunate choice for the beautiful, versatile, and super-energetic Golshifteh Farahani,who has played in French, Farsi, and English language films with equal success and acclaim. She was the glamorous center of Louis Garrel's directorial debut, Two Friends/Les deux amis. What were they all thinking and what are the R-V organizers thinking? Completists like me will feel compelled to find out. The director's debut, the teen-sex orgy film Bang Gang, we all went out of our way to see (R-V 2016). This doesn't promise as good a payoff, but Les Inrocks said that though "not a success," it didn't deserve the ridicule it received at Cannes. Jay Weissberg of Variety simply said it's a wholly artificial treatment of real facts (a French journalist embedded with a female peshmerga unit) that will nonetheless be a "shoo-in for international distribution" because it's a "emme-centric film, directed by a woman, about a group of women courageously fighting ISIS."

    Mia Hansen-Løve's Maya
    Some of her early films were wonderful, namely All Is Forgiven/Tout est pardonné and The Father of My Children/Le pére de mes enfants, while others have been just very nice, i.e. Goodbye First Love, Eden and Things to Come/L'Avenir, the latter with La Huppert, and therefore perfect (Metascore 88), but really more conventional than her earlier stuff. This one seems in the "nice" category, or worse, since it's got a so-so AlloCiné press rating of 3.3, and concerns a hotshot war journalist - often a dubious screen subject - in an exotic place - India - that Hansen-Løve probably doesn't know anything about. See Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs,, with Huppert as a war journalist, in America, which didn't pan out very well. But it's always wrong to prejudge a film, and I do especially like Hansen-Løve.



    Bruno Dumont's Coincoin and the Extra-Humans/Coincoin et les Z'inhumains
    He is one of the most distinctive French filmmakers of the last twenty years. His earlier films - Life of Jesus, Hunanité, Flanders, the spiritual and violent Hadewijch (NYFF 2009) and Hors Satan command one's utmost attention, almost reverence, even if one is at times also repulsed. They are harsh, shocking, and unforgettable, rooted in the poor part of north central France of Bailleul (Nord) from which he comes, not too far from the equally harsh and poor town of Hallencourt Edouard Louis, author of the searing 2014 gay adolescent coming-of-age novel The End of Eddy/En finir avec Eddy Belleguelle comes from. Lately he has turned whimsical and nutty, but is still out there. This new oneis a TV miniseries sequel to Li'l Quinquin/Ptit Quinquin, and has gotten very good reviews in France. It's harder for Americans to get. A couple years ago R-V presented Dumont's Slack Bay/Ma Loute, which for the first time had some very famous actors in stunningly unflattering roles. Last year came his goofily spiritual Childhood of Jeanne of Arc, which made John Waters' annual top ten list.

    En finir... and Edouard Louis

    Edouard Louis' novel was made into a movie by Anne Fontaine, Reinventing Marvin/Marvin ou la belle éduction. Unfortunately it seems (I haven't seen it) a misfire which Louis has denied any connection with. Too bad for the promising young actor who starred in it, Finnegan Oldfield, who has been seen in two previous R-V films, Bang Gang and Nocturama.

    The Summer House / Les Estivants
    Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, France/Italy, 2018

    She comes from a privileged Franco-Italian background; her sister is Carla Bruni, Sarkozy's third wife. She is equally fluent in French and Italian and is in films in both languages and as an actress she has 90 credits. Her directorial efforts, much less numerous (six), often touch on autobiographical, family-related issues, like this one, which sounds particularly tangled and rich in that kind of connection. Her performance in Paolo Virzì's Human Capital, an entertaining thriller combined with a tale of class and personal meltdown (of Bruni Tedeschi's character), was a splendid performance that suited her perfectly. This certainly sounds promising.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 02-14-2019 at 05:44 PM.

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    Starting the FESTIVAL COVERAGE review thread HERE. (But reviews won't begin till the end of the month.)

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    First Filmleaf reviews of films in the 2019 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema:

    THE TRUK/L'ENKAS (Sarah Marx 2018)

    This no-nonsense, intensely-focused first film about a young early released convict who finds the outside harder to deal with than prison lacks only a distinctive flair. Young actor Sandor Fundek shines in the main role. Good calling card for him and the director.

    THE FRESHMAN/PREMIÈRE ANNEE (Thomas Lilti 2018)

    The third in former doctor-turned-director Lilti's movies about medicine goes back to the France's grueling first year of medical school, which eliminates about 85% of the candidates. An indictment, and a celebration of a what becomes a selfless friendship of two study buddies. Stars Vincent Lacoste again, who starred in the first in the trilogy, Hippocrates, along with William Lebghil.

    WHEN MARGAUX MEETS MARGAUX/LA BELLE ET LA BELLE (Sophie Fillières 2018)

    A loose, fanciful, sexy tale of a lady who meets her self of twenty years earlier, in real life, and a former lover gets involved with both of them for a while. With three reliable French actors, Sandrine Kiberlain, Agathe Bonitzer, and Melvil Poupaud to charm you.

    KEEP AN EYE OUT!/AU POSTE! (Quentin Dupieux 2018)

    Dupieux, master of playful quirk, sticks closely, more or less, with the format of a classic Eighties-style police interrogation film in the manner of Claude Miller's intense crime movie Garde à Vue, with Lino Ventura. But this is surreal, silly, gruesome and conceptual and never plays by the rules. The interrogator is Benoît Poelvoorde.

    Coming soon:

    AMANDA (Mikhaël Hers 2018); opening night film THE TROUBLE WITH YOU/EN LIBERTE! (Pierre Salvadori 2018)
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 02-28-2019 at 10:40 AM.

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    AMANDA (Michaël Hers 2018).

    About a young man left to take care of his small niece when his sister is killed in a Paris terrorist attack, starring Vincent Lacoste in another role where he stretches his range, as he did in last year's SORRY ANGEL (Christophe Honoré in the NYFF) as a young gay man migrating from Britton to Paris to be with an older writer with AIDS. AMANDA lacks oomph as a picture about deep grief, but Lacoste is touching and sweet.

    Rendez-Vous showtime:
    Saturday, March 2 6:00pm
    Q&A with Mikhaël Hers
    Saturday, March 9 1:30pm
    U . S . P R E M I E R E

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    OPENING NIGHT FILM: Thurs. 28 Feb. 2019

    THE TROUBLE WITH YOU/EN LIBERTÉ! (Pierre Salvadori 2018)

    Boisterous French police comedy (with some violence), Hollywood (with a love of Lubitsch) French style. Delightfully warm visuals, silly nonsense, good feeling. With Adèle Haenel, Pio Marmaï, Audrey Tautou, Damien Bonnard.

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    RAISING COLORS/VOLONTAIRE (Helène Fillières 2018)

    An educated young woman from a liberal Paris family chooses to take a secretarial job in the French navy, and winds up enamored of her much older boss and determined to get into the green berets. A film that engages but does not utterly convince.

    Rendez-Vous showtimes:
    Friday, March 1, 4:00pm
    Sunday, March 3, 5:45pm (Q&A with Hélène Fillières)

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    SINK OR SWIM/LE GRAND BAIN (Gilles Lellouche 2018)

    A broad comedy with a brace of famous French movie actors, mostly male, playing an oddball group who get involved (Full Monty style)in a team of masculine synchronized swimmers. All, all guys (and gals, the two coaches) are people whose lives are a mess, and the film avoids being too uplifting by spending a lot of time on the messes. This movie got ten César nominations. Silly, lightweight, but serous too and entertaining.

    Rendez-Vous showtimes:
    Saturday, March 2, 8:45pm
    Monday, March 4, 9:00pm
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 03-03-2019 at 06:03 PM.

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    COINCOIN AND THE EXTRA-HUMANS/COINCOIN ET LES Z'INHUMAINS (Bruno Dumont 2018)

    A second four-part miniseries from Dumont set in his special part of northeastern France near Calais. Many of the same personalities are back from the first series, "L'il Quinquin." Now, gunk is falling from the sky, an invasion of extraterrestrials, and flashes of light are making people pregnant with their own clones, while an extreme right party meets out of town, people ride around illegally and wildly, the Gendarmerie is inept, the clerics are stupid and perhaps sex offenders, and African refugees wander around. Life as usual. Very much for a special taste, but these goofy, surreal, madcap episodes are highly accomplished especially in their use of non-actors, as before, and tech aspects are ace as well.

    Rendez-Vous showtime:
    Sunday, March 3, 1:00pm
    U.S. Premiere
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 03-05-2019 at 10:02 AM.

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    IN SAFE HANDS/PUPILLE (Jeanne Herry 2018)

    The French have their own special humane and safe system for offering newborns anonymously for adoption. This film traces a specific baby ("Théo") along his path to a delighted adoptive mother, Alice (Élodie Bouchez) through the help of a warm foster parent, Jean (Gilles Lellouche) and the urging of a quirky, passionate social worker, Karine (Sandrine Kiberlain). Somewhere else perhaps this would be just a TV special with a documentary flavor. Here its an intensely appealing film that got seven César nominations - because the French care passionately about their social services, particularly this one.

    At the 2019 FSLC-UniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater.

    Monday, March 4, 6:15pm (Q&A with Élodie Bouchez)

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    THE TIME OF THE PIRATES/SEUL LES PIRATES (Gaël Lepingle 2018)

    A community theater director in the Loire Valley refuses to accept relocation. This episodic film has interesting characters and atmosphere but does not come together very well.

    Rendez-Vous showtimes:
    Tuesday, March 5, 6:15pm
    Wednesday, March 6, 2:00pm

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    Now or soon to be available: reviews of SOPHIA ANTIPODES, METEORITES, and MAYA.

    For all 2019 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema reviews, go to the Filmleaf FESTIVAL COVERAGE THREAD.

    Still to come:
    INVISIBLES
    PAUL SANCHEZ IS BACK!
    SCHOOLS OUT
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 03-07-2019 at 07:10 AM.

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    METEORITES (Romain Laguna 2018)

    A sexual coming of age summer story with a strong lead and female point of view. A familiar genre, but fine filmmaking, revealing true talent. Striking visuals and assured editing.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 03-07-2019 at 08:22 AM.

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    SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS (Vergil Vernier 2018)

    Though in the Rendez-Vous schedule this is a Film Comment Selects film. Not in the same vein, but in French.
    Vernier makes edgy studies of urban anomie using non-actors and unrelated material to convey a sense of danger. His earlier film, MERCURIALES (ND/NF 2015) didn't quite cohere; it exhibited a prurient interest in nubile young women. This one is more substantial, but still at the end did not add up for me. Beautiful nude young women are in the first frames, by the way.

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    MAYA (Maya Hansen-Løve 201

    One of the most anticipated and "name" films of the Rendez-Vous, it's eye candy thanks to the cinematographer Helène Louvart shooting on film and Super16, but a bit of a disappointment. I am made uneasy by war correspondents in fiction films and films made away from their director's home territory and in another language. Maya is all of those, and while interesting, isn't really one of her best. The lead actor, Roman Kobalka, is a bit too recessive. As many reviewers note, the English dialogue is often wooden - and sometimes incomprehensible.

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